So, uh, which parts of the Bible do people generally not follow?

[fuzzybabybunny]

Leviticus? Numbers? Deuteronomy?

I did a quick search for "stone to death" and came across these, and from biblegateway.com no less.

http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=stone+to+death&qs_version=NIV

Leviticus 24:16
New International Version (NIV)
16 anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.

Numbers 35:17
New International Version (NIV)
17 Or if anyone is holding a stone and strikes someone a fatal blow with it, that person is a murderer; the murderer is to be put to death. (so capital punishment for sure is *required* in the Bible)

Deuteronomy 22:13-22
New International Version (NIV)
(If a woman is found to not be a virgin shortly after she's married, provided she lived previously with her parents)
21 she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.
22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. (so cheating gets capital punishment, as well as polyamorous relationships)

Do people just ignore these sections nowadays?

 

[Platypus]

posting in a troll thread.

tl;dr - people have been picking and choosing parts of it to follow that fit their views a la carte forever, this is not new and will only create a 5 page thread with crazy people arguing back and forth over nothing.

 

[Newbian]

I don't follow 10 simple rules but that's it.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

posting in a troll thread.

tl;dr - people have been picking and choosing parts of it to follow that fit their views a la carte forever, this is not new and will only create a 5 page thread with crazy people arguing back and forth over nothing.

I'm not trying to troll. Honestly I don't know much about the Bible or the numerous translations or versions or whatnot.

But I go and read these statements from the Bible and can't help but go - "Whoa."

I mean, they're pretty clear cut about what adherents should do in the situations I outlined above. And, you know, I cited where they are. Not making it up.

 

[Platypus]

I'm not trying to troll. Honestly I don't know much about the Bible or the numerous translations or versions or whatnot.

But I go and read these statements from the Bible and can't help but go - "Whoa."

I mean, they're pretty clear cut about what adherents should do in the situations I outlined above. And, you know, I cited where they are. Not making it up.

Please, you knew exactly what you were doing by making this thread, you've been around here long enough and you're a moderator after all.

 

[preslove]

Jesus came and fulfilled the covenant with God made in the old testament, so none of the old testament laws are binding (not that they all are to most jews, nowadays, either).

The best Christians focus on the 'red letters' of the Bible. Bibles tend to put Jesus's words in Red. Many Christians find ways to use the black letters to excuse contravening the red ones. These are hypocrites with worthless faiths.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Please, you knew exactly what you were doing by making this thread, you've been around here long enough and you're a moderator after all.

No, I'm honestly looking for some explanation.

I know some people don't follow the whole Genesis thing, despite it being part of the Bible, right? Do others do the same for Numbers, Deuteronomy, etc?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

No, I'm honestly looking for some explanation.

I know some people don't follow the whole Genesis thing, despite it being part of the Bible, right? Do others do the same for Numbers, Deuteronomy, etc?

Correct, not all Christians today slay their blasphemous neighbors.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Jesus came and fulfilled the covenant with God made in the old testament, so none of the old testament laws are binding (not that they all are to most jews, nowadays, either).

The best Christians focus on the 'red letters' of the Bible. Many Bibles put Jesus's words in Red. Many Christians find ways to use the black letters to excuse contravening the red ones. These are hypocrites with worthless faiths.

Ah, so Old Testament is just story and the laws aren't binding anymore. At most they're suggestions and at the least they're irrelevant.

If I'm reading the Bible I should just skip to the red letters. Can you give an example of red letters from that biblegateway site? Or how to find them?

 

[JulesMaximus]

I'm sure there are many people in this country who would like to see us return to those ways.

 

[mcveigh]

"let he who is without sin cast the first stone"

 

[zinfamous]

the parts where Jesus never gives an opinion on homosexuality.

 

[preslove]

Ah, so Old Testament is just story and the laws aren't binding anymore. At most they're suggestions and at the least they're irrelevant.

If I'm reading the Bible I should just skip to the red letters. Can you give an example of red letters from that biblegateway site? Or how to find them?

Anything that Jesus actually said in the gospels is what I mean. Many bibles put anything that Jesus said in red.

View it more from the point of view that Jesus was the only truly divine, and therefore perfect, human in the bible. His words transcend time and culture. The rest of the bible should be viewed as a historical artifact that imperfectly tells the tale of the Hebrews and Christians. The stories within have to be viewed with a historical context.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

I'm not trying to troll. Honestly I don't know much about the Bible or the numerous translations or versions or whatnot.

But I go and read these statements from the Bible and can't help but go - "Whoa."

I mean, they're pretty clear cut about what adherents should do in the situations I outlined above. And, you know, I cited where they are. Not making it up.

Then your thread is only about 15 years LATE TO THE FUCKING INTERNET.

1. No one believes or follows any of those laws from ancient times in the modern Christian world today. There are people who do follow similar practices in all kinds of rotten places in the world TODAY, and they are not Christians. Well they may be Christian, but they are more importantly, poor.

2. When those laws were written, they were a REVOLUTION in those societies from which they came. Prior to those barbaric, draconian, brutal laws, people had NO RIGHTS. Those laws at least told you what to expect. But more importantly, they told you what to expect no matter WHO YOU WERE.

3. Your "I swear I am not a troll" thread is an obvious troll. If you don't think this is trolling you are more ignorant about yourself than history. This thread has been posted on the internet almost verbatim, since the internet. The concept behind it, is older than that.

Congratulations, you have succeeded in showing us just how small and insulated your world is. Have a nice day.

 

[momeNt]

Leviticus? Numbers? Deuteronomy?

I did a quick search for "stone to death" and came across these, and from biblegateway.com no less.

http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=stone+to+death&qs_version=NIV

Leviticus 24:16
New International Version (NIV)
16 anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.

Numbers 35:17
New International Version (NIV)
17 Or if anyone is holding a stone and strikes someone a fatal blow with it, that person is a murderer; the murderer is to be put to death. (so capital punishment for sure is *required* in the Bible)

Deuteronomy 22:13-22
New International Version (NIV)
(If a woman is found to not be a virgin shortly after she's married, provided she lived previously with her parents)
21 she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.
22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. (so cheating gets capital punishment, as well as polyamorous relationships)

Do people just ignore these sections nowadays?

Not everybody ignores those sections.

There are pockets of individuals in the South that are able to strictly follow the laws - and I mean all the laws - of the Bible, because they have law enforcement actually enforcing the Bible and nobody speaks up about it to get the story to go national.

I won't divulge the locations of these pockets, but generally they are towns of 2,000-10,000 individuals mostly centered around farming with very little contact with the outside world.

The ignorance in this thread is astounding, the fact that some people think that there aren't any literal followers anymore is really laughable.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Anything that Jesus actually said in the gospels is what I mean. Many bibles put anything that Jesus said in red.

View it more from the point of view that Jesus was the only truly divine, and therefore perfect, human in the bible. His words transcend time and culture. The rest of the bible should be viewed as a historical artifact that imperfectly tells the tale of the Hebrews and Christians. The stories within have to be viewed with a historical context.

Ohhhhhhhhh.... gotcha.

So, uh, where are the Gospels?

http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-International-Version-NIV-Bible/#books

So if I want to "get" what Christians should believe, I need to just focus on reading the red text.

 

[crashtestdummy]

Do people just ignore these sections nowadays?

It's not just "nowdays". Deuteronomy 21:18-21 says that we are to stone to death disobedient sons. Even in the time of the Gemara (~500CE) people were squeamish about this. So they made the legal process so difficult so that it never happened.

Similarly, with the death penalty for being gay, there needed to be two witnesses that caught the accused in the act of anal sex, they needed to tell the accused that they were sinning, and the accused needed to resume there actions immediately. Obviously, this never happened either.

Despite the claims of many that certain texts are infallible, we've been adjusting them and re-interpreting them since the time they were created.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Then your thread is only about 15 years LATE TO THE FUCKING INTERNET.

1. No one believes or follows any of those laws from ancient times in the modern Christian world today. There are people who do follow similar practices in all kinds of rotten places in the world TODAY, and they are not Christians.

2. When those laws were written, they were a REVOLUTION in those societies from which they came. Prior to those barbaric, draconian, brutal laws, people had NO RIGHTS. Those laws at least told you what to expect. But more importantly, they told you what to expect no matter WHO YOU WERE.

3. Your "I swear I am not a troll" thread is an obvious troll. If you don't think this is trolling you are more ignorant about yourself than history. This thread has been posted on the internet almost verbatim, since the internet. The concept behind it, is older than that.

Congratulations, you have succeeded in showing us just how small and insulated your world is. Have a nice day.

Small and insulated because I've never had an inclination to understand the Bible? Huh? Why exactly is an understanding of the Bible a requirement to not being small and insulated?

 

[preslove]

Ohhhhhhhhh.... gotcha.

So, uh, where are the Gospels?

http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-International-Version-NIV-Bible/#books

So if I want to "get" what Christians should believe, I need to just focus on reading the red text.

Not really. "Christian" can mean almost anything. Catholics have a lot of canon law that trumps even the bible.

There are 4 canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and then countless others that were excluded from Bible and suppressed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel

If you want to know what Christians believe (and why the believe it), this is a better start: http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-F.../dp/0143118692

The author, Diarmaid MacCulloch, also made pretty good BBC series, which I watched with netflix by mail. He also has an excellent lecture series on Christian history in iTunes.

 

[momeNt]

Small and insulated because I've never had an inclination to understand the Bible? Huh? Why exactly is an understanding of the Bible a requirement to not being small and insulated?

It's like thinking that if Babylon was still around they'd have kept the Code of Hammurabi.

While as I said earlier, there are in fact literal followers, I wouldn't expect you to know that, or even think that, lest you be considered an idiot by your fellow forum-goers.

You're not an idiot are you?

 

[Ricochet]

OP, you just demonstrated that you don't understand the very basic belief of Christianity. Were you not raised in the US?

Christianity is about Jesus Christ. Jesus died on the cross as sacrificial payment to God the Father. It is the only suitable payment to absolved us from death, as the penalty for sin is assuredly death by God's law. Why do you think Christians call him (JC) the savior? Why do you think Christians believe that non-believers are condemned to hell (death)? The point is everyone sin and deserve death but only Christians (who are also sinners) are saved.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

I'm beginning to understand why people don't even want to bother figuring out the Bible or the beliefs of Christians.

They're immediately met with allegations of trolling and invective.

Sheesh, 15 years ago I was minding my own business in middle school.

Forget it. People like SphinxnihpS are just pushing people to stay ignorant and take quotes from the Old Testament and posting them on Facebook as proof of how stupid all Christians are. At least I'm trying to give it a fair chance.

 

[Platypus]

I'm beginning to understand why people don't even want to bother figuring out the Bible or the beliefs of Christians.

They're immediately met with allegations of trolling and invective.

Sheesh, 15 years ago I was minding my own business in middle school.

Forget it. People like SphinxnihpS are just pushing people to stay ignorant and take quotes from the Old Testament and posting them on Facebook as proof of how stupid all Christians are. At least I'm trying to give it a fair chance.

Well at least you got the martyr part figured out!

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Small and insulated because I've never had an inclination to understand the Bible? Huh? Why exactly is an understanding of the Bible a requirement to not being small and insulated?

You simply can have no meaningful grasp of history of Western Culture without it. Do they teach nothing in school anymore? Are you incapable of drawing those conclusions on your own? Do you understand anything about US History even, much less Europe? Christianity is central to all of that. Christianity, like it or not, is the dominant force that shaped all of Western culture for the past 2000 years. Your ability to speak and act freely is due to Christianity. Your ability to openly challenge Christianity is due to Christianity.

 

[preslove]

I'm beginning to understand why people don't even want to bother figuring out the Bible or the beliefs of Christians.

They're immediately met with allegations of trolling and invective.

Sheesh, 15 years ago I was minding my own business in middle school.

Forget it. People like SphinxnihpS are just pushing people to stay ignorant and take quotes from the Old Testament and posting them on Facebook as proof of how stupid all Christians are. At least I'm trying to give it a fair chance.

OP, read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-F.../dp/0143118692

If someone calls themselves a "Christian," it can mean many different things, and just reading the bible won't tell you much about it. Reading about Christian history will tell you not only what they believe, but why they believe it. If you want, read the bible afterwards.